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THE documentary “The Cats of Mirikitani” is supposed to be about Jimmy Mirikitani, a homeless street artist, but all too often it’s about its director, Linda Hattendorf.

Jimmy is a spry 81-year-old who paints cats and other things and sleeps on the sidewalks of SoHo, where Hattendorf lives. She befriends the artist and takes him in on 9/11. She helps Jimmy get Social Security and reunites him with his family.

World War II is still fresh in Jimmy’s mind. He was born in California and raised in Tokyo. Back in the U.S., he was one of 120,000 Japanese rounded up and tossed into detention centers after Pearl Harbor. He still feels anger over his treatment and over the atomic-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Mirikitani is a colorful character and talented artist, and his story tugs at the heart. Problem is, Hattendorf insists on inserting herself in what seems like every other scene, a device that dilutes Jimmy’s story.

In English and Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 74 minutes. Not rated (talk about war). At the Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.